Where There's Smoke

CHAPTER 7

It was late afternoon when the train arrived back at Euston. Kate stepped down from the carriage and made her way with the few other travellers towards the exit. Their footsteps echoed in a complicated cross-rhythm. It was strangely deserted on the hot Saturday. With the sunlight suffusing through the high windows, it assumed a hushed, almost dream-like quality, and Kate remembered her anxiety dream of being lost in a crowded station. Now, though, as she walked through the almost empty concourse, she knew exactly what she was doing.

She caught a taxi outside the station. It was an extravagance when the tube was almost as convenient, but she didn’t care. She gave the driver Lucy and Jack’s address and sat back, feeling her body hum with barely suppressed exuberance.

The taxi dropped her outside the house. She struggled with the gate, which was almost as dysfunctional as hers, and went up the path. After a moment Lucy answered the door, wiping her hands on a towel.

“So how was Birmingham?” she asked, standing back to let Kate inside.

“Oh … okay.”

Lucy cocked an eyebrow. “Judging by the look on your face it went better than okay.”

She closed the door. “Go straight through. We’re out back. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

She went upstairs. As Kate began to go down the hallway, Lucy leaned over the banister that fronted the first-floor landing. “And keep an eye on what Jack’s up to with the barbecue, will you? He pretends he knows what he’s doing, but he hasn’t a clue.”

The warped French windows in the lounge were thrown open. Beyond them, the garden was overgrown and unkempt. Someone had made a token effort to cut the grass, trimming a shaved square in the centre of the ankle-deep lawn. Over one corner of the high, crumbling brick wall that screened the house from its neighbours hung the heavy branches of a laburnum.

Emily and Angus ran up to Kate as soon as she went out. Emily, older and more shy, presented her face for a kiss, but Angus, still unsteady on his feet, demanded to be picked up. His mouth was orange from the ice-lolly he clutched in one fist.

Jack was standing by a home-built barbecue, made from bricks. Smoke crept up from the grey-black lumps of charcoal, jerking back and forth as he fanned it vigorously with a piece of wood. He wore a grubby white T-shirt, and his hairy legs stuck out from beneath a pair of knee-length shorts. He grinned at her, red-faced and sweating. “How you doing, Kate? Grab a beer. Or there’s wine in the kitchen, if you want it.”

“Beer’s fine, thanks.”

Setting Angus down, she went to the plastic cooler beside the barbecue and took out a chilled bottle. She opened it and drank. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was until she tasted the cold liquid.

“Look at you, dressed up to the nines, and swigging beer from a bottle,” Lucy said, as she came through the French windows. “Oh, God, you’ve let Angus near you. There’s orange lolly all over your skirt.”

Kate glanced down at the stains on the cream-coloured fabric. There was a smear on her sleeveless white top, too. She didn’t care. “It doesn’t matter.”

Lucy regarded her. “My, it must have gone well!” She led Kate over to a table and plastic chairs, clustered in the shade of the overhanging laburnum. Emily went with them. “Go and help Daddy, Emily, there’s a good girl,” Lucy told her.

“Angus can help Daddy,” the little girl said, climbing on a chair next to Kate.

“Angus’ll get in the way. Go on, you’ll have all evening to pester Kate, but Mummy just wants to talk to her now.”

With a moue of disappointment, Emily slid off the chair and trudged over to the barbecue.

“I don’t mind her staying,” Kate said.

“No, but I do. I’ve not told her the facts of life yet, and I don’t want her suddenly asking what ‘insemination’ means in the middle of Tesco’s.”

Lucy settled back in her chair. “So. What happened?”

Kate tried to sound blase. “They told me there’s no problem.”

“Just like that?”

“More or less. I’ve got to wait for the results of the blood tests and everything,” she held out her left arm, displaying the plaster the nurse had put over the needle mark, “but assuming they’re okay I can go ahead.”

“And they’re willing to use whoever you pick for the donor?”

“They say so, yes.”

Lucy’s face showed what she thought of that. “So they’ll basically impregnate anybody who asks, then.”

“Of course they don’t.”

Kate felt her mood touched by irritation. “Particularly not anyone single, like me. You have to satisfy them that you’re capable of bringing up a child on your own. Emotionally as well as financially. And they wanted to know how I’d cope with working and being a mother.”

The word “mother” sent a thrill through her. It seemed to take on a whole new context. She cleared her throat. “I told her — the counsellor — that for a lot of the time I could probably work from home, or even take the baby to the office with me. Then, later, I’d have to think about finding a nursery for some of the time.”

Lucy gave a snort. “You haven’t even had the poor mite yet and already you’re farming it out.”

“I’m being realistic. You’d be the first to criticise me if I wasn’t. Anyway, the counsellor was satisfied, and they take the child’s welfare pretty seriously.”

“So that’s it, then? You’re going ahead?”

Kate looked away from Lucy’s interrogative stare, watching Emily and Angus as they played near their father. “I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind.”

“Are you sure?”

She tried to sidestep the question. “It’s no good deciding anything until I get the results of the tests.”

She could feel Lucy watching her. After a moment Lucy sighed. “What’s this place like, anyway?”

Kate took a colour brochure from her bag and handed it across the table. Lucy studied the photograph of the tree-shrouded building on the cover.

“The Wynguard Clinic,” she read. “Well, that’s certainly not NHS, is it?”

“No, it’s private.”

Kate told herself there was no reason to feel defensive. “They don’t just do DI, though. They carry out all sorts of fertility treatments. And they’ve got a fully equipped maternity unit.”

It had been a far cry from the first clinic she had visited, air-conditioned and carpeted. Lucy’s mouth turned down slightly at the corners as she flicked through the brochure. “So what’s this going to cost you, then?”

Kate noticed that Lucy spoke as if the decision was already made. She didn’t correct her. “It’s a bit more than the other place.”

“How much more?”

Kate felt her face going red. “It’s … er, five hundred. A cycle.”

Lucy’s head came up from the brochure. “Five hundred pounds! Each time you have it done!”

Katnodded, uncomfortably. “Christ!”

“It isn’t that bad, really. You know, considering how few places actually do it. They give you two inseminations per cycle. And they’ll continue the treatment for up to twelve cycles, instead of nine, like the other place.”

“I should think they bloody will, if you’re paying them five hundred quid a shot!” Lucy stared at her, incredulous. “Bloody hell, that’s ridiculous! I mean, it could end up costing you five, no, six thousand quid! And there’s no guarantee you’ll even get pregnant, is there?”

“There’s a good chance. And it might work first time.”

“And it might not!” Lucy put down the brochure. “Look, if you’re this serious about having a baby, why don’t you just find somebody and …” she glanced over to where Angus and Emily were playing, and lowered her voice “… and sleep with them, for God’s sake? There’s just as much chance of getting pregnant, and even if you don’t, at least you’ll have enjoyed yourself! This is just …” She threw up her hands, speechless.

The last vestige of Kate’s good mood disappeared. “So what do you want me to do? Trawl through singles bars and ask anyone who takes my fancy back for a quickie?”

“No, of course I don’t!” Lucy’s mouth quirked upwards. “It doesn’t have to be quick.”

Despite herself Kate laughed. But she was still angry. “Well, that’s what it amounts to, isn’t it? I mean, to start off with you say that you disapprove of me having a baby, full stop. Now it’s okay for me to get pregnant, provided it doesn’t cost me anything, even if I have to turn into Supertart to do it!”

Lucy’s lips were clamped in a tight line. “It’s your money, Kate, you can do what you like with it. But millions of other women manage to get pregnant without having to pay six thousand quid for the privilege, and I can’t see why you have to be any different.”

There was a shriek of laughter from nearby. They looked around as Angus tottered towards them in an unstable run, hands held up in the air, orange-stained face split in a wide grin. Emily was close behind, laughing, and as she caught up with him Angus tumbled and thumped down onto the grass. Lucy went to pick him up. “Oh, now you haven’t hurt yourself,” she said, as his face puckered uncertainly. She rubbed the grass stain on his knee. “There, is that better?”

Angus still didn’t seem too sure, but Lucy plonked him back on the lawn. Emily hung back, watching her apprehensively. “I thought I told you that Mummy and Kate wanted to talk?”

“Yes, but Angus started running over, and I was only — “

“You were only chasing him. Now go over and help Daddy, like I said. We won’t be long.”

“But Mummy!”

“No buts. Go on.”

Sulking, Emily turned and walked away. Angus ran after her, his fall already forgotten. Lucy came back to the table and sat down. The interruption had taken the heat out of the argument, but Kate waited until the children were out of earshot before she spoke.

“Look, Lucy, I know you don’t approve. But what’s the alternative? I don’t want casual sex. I don’t want any complications. I just want a baby. This way I can have control over who the father is and have the legal and medical protection of using a clinic. You don’t get that on a one-night stand, do you?”

Lucy looked unconvinced. “I know, but it just seems so … impersonal.”

Kate nodded, emphatically. “That’s what I want.”

“But what about when the baby gets older? What will you tell it?”

Kate had asked herself the same question. She attempted an insouciance she didn’t entirely feel. “The truth. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

She believed that, even while she knew it might not be so simple. But the clinic offered advice and counselling on how to deal with it. She would meet that problem when it came. She leaned forward in her seat. “Come on, Lucy. This is what I want. Be pleased for me.”

“I am, but …”

Scepticism remained on Lucy’s face. She looked at Kate for a moment longer, then relented. “I am. Ignore me.”

She gave a wry grin. “Anyway, I thought you hadn’t decided anything yet?”

Kate smiled but said nothing. Lucy stood up. “Come on. Let’s go and stop Jack from burning everything.”

They left the shade of the laburnum and went over to the barbecue. Jack had given up fanning the charcoal and was regarding the tray of sausages and marinated meats with a dubious expression, a spatula in his hand. They were still pink and raw.

“Is it hot enough?” Lucy asked, as they came up behind him.

“It should be. I’ve spent long enough fanning the bloody thing.” His sparse dark hair was plastered to his forehead.

“Why don’t you put some of that fluid stuff on?”

He gave Lucy an exasperated look. “I have.”

“Well, I should put some more on, if I were you. It’ll be dark at this rate.”

He held out the spatula to her. “Do you want to do this?”

Lucy threw up her hands. “No, thanks, I cook every day. Having a barbecue was your idea. And don’t let Angus get too near, he’ll burn himself.”

Jack sighed and steered his son away from the bricks.

“I hear you’ve got refinancing from the bank,” Kate said, hoping to divert a family squabble. “Congratulations.”

He smiled. “Yeah. I was sweating there for a while. Ten grand down and another three thousand just gone on new hardware. It was looking a bit grim.” He stopped, suddenly self-conscious. “Thanks for offering to help out, though. Lucy told me.”

“I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

“Probably as well it didn’t,” Lucy cut in. “Kate might need refinancing herself now, Jack.”

He looked at Kate, surprised. “I thought the agency was doing well?”

“I don’t mean the agency,” Lucy said, giving him a look.

“No? Oh, right!” His face lightened. “So you’re going ahead with it, then?”

Annoyed at the way Lucy had introduced the subject, Kate just nodded. Jack grinned at her. “Good for you.”

“You don’t know how much it’s going to cost,” Lucy said, pointedly.

“So what, if it’s what she wants?” He winked at Kate. “It’s your life. You go for it.”

He turned back to the barbecue, rubbing his hands together. “Right, let’s sort this out.”

He picked up the plastic bottle of barbecue fluid and, holding it at arm’s length, squirted it liberally on the charcoal. Nothing happened. He took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. “Stand ack.” There was a whuff as a sheet of pale flame shot into the air. They flinched from the sudden heat. Jack made darting grabs for the wire tray to lift it off as the fire engulfed it, but after a moment he gave up, blowing on his burnt fingers.

“Do you think you put enough on?” Lucy asked, and they began to laugh as the air above the barbecue shimmered, and the meat started to blacken and curl in the flames.

They ate green salad and takeaway pizza at the table under the laburnum tree. The remains of the barbecue, charred and foul with the taste of the fluid, lay untouched above the still-hot embers. Angus had become tired and fractious and had gone to bed in tears, while Emily sat on Kate’s knee, almost asleep herself. The sun had gone down, but the evening was still warm. Several beer bottles and a bottle of wine sat on the table by the plates. Kate moved slightly, easing Emily to a more comfortable position. The little girl stirred and yawned, hugely.

“Time for bed, young lady,” Lucy said. Emily gave a half-hearted moan of protest. Lucy ignored it. “Kiss Kate goodnight. Daddy’ll take you.”

“I want Kate to take me.”

“No, Kate’s going to stay with Mummy.”

Lucy motioned with her head at Jack. He took the hint and stood up with a crack of knee joints. Rubbing her eyes, Emily allowed him to pick her up. Her breath was sweet with cherryade when Kate kissed her.

Lucy waited until they had gone inside. “So have you thought about who you want to be the donor?” she asked, out of the blue. “Assuming you decide to go ahead, obviously,” she added, ironically.

It was a question that Kate had been avoiding. “No, not yet.”

“Any ideas?”

“Not really.”

Lucy pushed her glass around on the table with her finger. “You must have thought about it.”

Kate had started nudging her own glass around, smearing the wet rings on the table top. She took her hand away. “I haven’t got that far yet. I’ve been too busy trying to find out if I could have it done to worry about anything else.”

“Surely you’ve got some idea, though?”

“Lucy, I don’t know, all right? Why are you going on about it?”

Lucy was watching her with a strange expression. “Not Jack.”

“What?”

“Not Jack. I don’t want you asking Jack.”

Kate stared at her. “Lucy, I … I’d never even considered it!“ But as she said it, she knew she had. She liked Jack and, more importantly, trusted him, and the thought of using him as the donor must have been loitering at the edge of her subconscious. It was enough to redden her face now. Both she and Lucy looked away from each other at the same time.

“I’m sorry, but I’d got to say it,” Lucy said, abruptly.

“It’s okay.”

“I know it’s selfish, but I just couldn’t handle that at all.”

“It’s all right, really.”

A silence built between them. Lucy cleared her throat. “So are you going to make a list of possible candidates?” she asked, with forced lightness.

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Who — ” Lucy began, then stopped when she remembered they had already gone over that. “I mean, do you think you’ll have any trouble finding someone?”

Kate was as keen as Lucy to leave the brief awkwardness behind. “I don’t know.” She felt obliged to add more. “I suppose the problem’s going to be that I don’t know that many men when it boils down to it. Not well enough to ask, anyway.”

“What about Clive? I’d have thought he was an obvious choice.”

Kate had begun sliding her glass around on the table again. She put her hand in her lap. “He would be, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea.”

“Because the baby would be mixed-race, you mean? I wouldn’t have thought that would bother you.”

There was a faintly arch note in Lucy’s voice. Kate ignored it. “It wouldn’t, but having to work with Clive again afterwards would. And if I asked him and he said no, that’d be almost as bad.”

“Isn’t there anyone at the gym?”

“No one I’d want to ask.”

Lucy sighed, though whether in sympathy or exasperation it was difficult to tell. “Looks like you’ve got a problem, then, doesn’t it?”

“What problem?” Jack asked, coming up to the table. Neither of them had heard him approach.

“Kate can’t think of a donor,” Lucy said, and Kate tensed, waiting for him to make some joke about himself.

“Just don’t pick anybody with ginger hair,” he said, sitting down. “Wouldn’t be fair to the kid.”

He poured himself a glass of wine. “Who’ve you got it narrowed down to?”

“Nobody, yet,” Kate admitted.

“Spoilt for choice?”

“Hardly. The only people I can think of, I either wouldn’t want to ask or I can’t because it’d cause too many complications.”

She had meant Clive, but realised as she spoke that this last point applied equally to Jack. Lucy gave her a sharp look. “Which really makes a mockery of the idea of a known donor, doesn’t it?” Lucy said, with a slight edge.

Kate tried not to react to it. “Not really. Just because I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask someone who’d see me — and the baby — regularly, it doesn’t mean I’m going to settle for someone I’ve never even met.”

Lucy gave a snort. “Well, if you don’t want anyone you don’t know, and you won’t ask anyone you do know, there’s not a great deal left, is there?”

Kate was about to respond, hotly, when Jack spoke. “Why don’t you advertise?”

“Oh, don’t be stupid,” Lucy snapped.

“I’m not being stupid,” he said, equably.

“Well, where’s she going to advertise? The post-office window?”

Jack gave Lucy a stark glance before turning to Kate. “Have you thought about putting an ad in the personal columns?”

“Oh, come on!” Lucy exclaimed. “You can’t advertise for a sperm donor in a newspaper!”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because you can’t!”

Jack ignored her. “You can word the ad to specify the sort of bloke you want,” he said to Kate. “You know, intelligent, professional, good-looking. Not ginger-haired. Whatever.”

“For God’s sake, Jack!” Lucy protested. “I can’t believe you’re suggesting this!”

“Why not?”

Kate thought he was enjoying his wife’s outrage. “It’s only like advertising for a job. What’s the difference?”

“What’s the difference? The difference is you don’t have to masturbate at a job interview! I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! You could get anyone answering!”

“So you check them out. And you’re careful which newspapers you place the ad in. Go for something like the Guardian or The Times rather than a tits ‘n’ bums tabloid.”

“Or I could place it in professional journals,” Kate said, fired by the idea. “Target specific groups I know are going to be fairly responsible and intelligent. Like teachers or lawyers.”

“I dunno about lawyers,” Jack said.

She laughed. “Doctors, then. I could advertise in a medical journal. I can’t see a doctor being easily shocked or offended. And they’d be more likely to take it seriously.”

Lucy was looking at her, horrified. “You’re not really considering it!”

“Well,” Kate said, “it’s worth thinking about.”

She batted at a moth that had blundered into her face. It fluttered off into the growing darkness, towards the still-glowing barbecue.